Mosey Jones - The Mumpreneur Diaries - Business, Babies or Bust - One Mother of a Year

After Middle Sister has left I crank up the internet and look into this modelling malarkey. Children don’t have to be ‘overly beautiful’ (good), just ‘clear-skinned and bright-eyed’ (would chocolate-smeared with unidentifiable foodstuffs in the hair count?). They also have to be ‘sociable, good at listening to instructions and carrying them out with the minimum of fuss’. This is all right for Boy Two who, having just discovered his smile, flirts with anything that moves, making for a very slow journey round the supermarket. Smiling babies are an absolute granny magnet.

Boy One, however, may prove a little trickier. Massively photogenic (like his mother, natch), he does have a tendency to try to crawl inside my clothes when he meets new people. It doesn’t take long for him to get over himself and start showing off like a pro, but probably long enough for ad men to get bored and move on to the next angel-faced urchin. Equally: ‘Bad manners or sulkiness will not be tolerated.’ Boy One’s manners are fine but I’m a little sceptical about his Tourettelike penchant for bellowing ‘POO!’ for no good reason. He also does a nice line in teenage sulks if things aren’t going his way. (What will he do when he’s a teenager – behave like a toddler? It’s not beyond the realms of imagination.)

Nor does it bode well that shoots can take ‘two to three hours, but factor in lots more time as they often overrun’. Bored children, shyness followed by obstreperousness – it doesn’t sound like a recipe for an easy life. And then there is the pay, which initially sounds great until you realise all the ‘extras’ you need to accommodate. Babies can coin in about £50 an hour, and older children even more. But, and it’s a big ‘but’, the agencies take a quarter of that and you have to be willing to leave everything at the drop of a hat, plus pay for your own transport costs. Sure, one day they’re grinning over a bowl of peas and the next they’re Patsy Kensit, married to a rock star and doing a nice line in soap operas. But twenty-odd years is a long time to wait to hit pay dirt. I’ve given Middle Sister the go-ahead just in case something comes of it, but I’m not sure that I’m suited to the role of Mother of Supermodel.

The good news is that the doula course stuff came through so I’m moments away from my new career as fanny monitor/urchin burper. However the bad news is that the course isn’t until June, unless I want to attend the one in Manchester. It’d be fine for fitting into the grand scheme of using twelve months’ maternity leave to set up an alternative to going back to the office, but leaving it that late doesn’t cover me for the more immediate crisis posed by the Husband’s lack of career prospects.

But, every cloud – silver lining and all that. Mr Book Man is champing at the bit for some more meat on the bones of this book idea we are tossing about. He reckons if he can get a full chapter breakdown, his editorial team will bite and we’ll get the green light. I can’t escape the irony that, after having decided writing isn’t going to provide the bread and butter after having Boy Two, suddenly it’s all taking off. I have even managed to use the delay in the doula course to pitch related stories to old freelance contacts. The Times blows me out as usual but my baby mag contacts seem really keen. I get roughly 350 smackers for every article I send them. It’s not much but it keeps Boy One in Hula Hoops.

As I send off the chapter ideas to Mr Book Man, I reflect that I ought to get on with starting a business for myself, practising what I preach. But I still don’t have a clue where to start. In a flagrant example of ‘do as I say, not as I do’, I’ve written in one of the sample chapters: ‘You can always find time to squeeze in a phone call, meeting or web update – you just have to be creative! Use the crèche in the gym, the local playbarn or even beg a favour off a mate.’ My latest business phone calls have been punctuated by hysterical screaming (Boy Two), chants of ‘wipe my bottom, I did a poo’ (Boy One), and several muffled moments as I dropped the phone that had been cradled between jaw and shoulder, both hands being occupied in wrestling a baby onto a boob.

Finally, the Husband has finished his grant proposals. Instead of being swathed in a black cloud of despondency, he now carries an air of quiet resignation, born equally of not having much hope but being able to do bugger all about it. On the positive side this means he’s a bit more available for bathing duty but it also means that his career – and our financial security – is in the hands of the gods, or charity accountants, which is practically the same thing.

It seems I’m not the only one struggling with finding a new direction, post baby. Academic Mother brings her three-year-old daughter over for a playdate with Boy One and settles in for a good old whinge.

Shortly after having her daughter, Academic Mother resurrected her postgraduate thesis, aiming for a lectureship in one of the local universities. If I ever moaned about there not being enough hours in the day I just needed to look at her to get over myself. She rose at 4 or 5 am to start writing, getting her daughter up at 7 am and doing a full day of full-time parenting while her partner went out to work, putting her little girl to bed again at 8 pm only to pick up where she’d left off that morning. I don’t think her head hit the pillow for more than three or four hours at any given time. She kept this up for nearly three years until she finally submitted her work, sailing through the viva and earning her PhD.

You’d have thought that it would have been the start of a glittering career…

‘The research just doesn’t sit well with those conservative bastards,’ she moans. ‘I’ve got to get the thesis published and try to write a couple of really straight-laced articles before I’ll fit in anywhere.’

‘Weren’t you helping out at some college or other?’ I ask.

‘Only one day a week, and it was only temporary. Besides, it didn’t even keep the dog in balls.’ Academic Mother’s dog has a bit of a rubber fetish. ‘I’m beginning to think there’s no future in academia.’ She sighs.

I could have told her that, based on the heavy depression hanging over our house at the moment.

‘Your man won’t be happy with you being a Stay at Home Mum surely. What are you going to do?’

Academic Mother’s partner is certainly keen for her to get back to earning. He’s an estate agent and the rocky economic climate isn’t doing his employers any favours. His enthusiasm for her to start earning again doesn’t extend to sharing the childcare though. I can’t believe she hasn’t folded under the sheer exhaustion of it all. The Husband may be many things, but he tries to be helpful and spends time with his children. I know I can count on his support, and for that I am always grateful.

‘Ironically enough, I’ve gone into childcare – I’m registering as a childminder,’ she answers. It makes sense, if you think about it. Apart from the enormous waste of lie-ins writing that bloody thesis, she’s a natural mother and enjoys spending time with children. It’s something I’ve thought about too, but only for a nanosecond because a) my house isn’t big enough to swing a toddler – even a small one, and b) though I love my children deeply, the idea of singing ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’ for three hours straight makes me want to chew my own legs off.

I’m briefly leaving my country hovel to go and meet up with Mother from Work in London. She and I both work for the same magazine and have a peculiar habit of getting pregnant at the same time – twice so far. In fact, in our core team of four people there have been eight babies in the last four years. I think it’s something to do with the chairs. We’re both returning to what used to be the real world, a place where they get dressed before lunchtime. A place where they commute to offices and spend their time scanning Facebook for old boyfriends and sending emails to the person they sit beside.